Empire Triumphant over AvariceImage by jaroslavd Adriaen de Vries (artist) Netherlandish, c. 1556 - 1626 Empire Triumphant over Avarice, 1610 bronze National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. From the Gallery's description: Adriaen de Vries was born in the Netherlands, but he spent considerable time in Italy. This statuette reveals the influence of Michelangelo and the Florentine sculptor Giambologna, with whom de Vries worked. The figures are powerful, their interaction energetic and dynamic. Even the surface is animated, reflecting light from restlessly modulated planes. This statuette was made for the Hapsburg emperor Rudolph II in Prague, after de Vries had been appointed a court artist. An allegorical figure of Empire holds the wreath of victory over a vanquished figure of Avarice, a money bag at her feet. The theme of empire triumphant is natural enough, but why the triumph over avarice? In the early 1600s Rudolph was in a weakened political position and hard pressed to pay for his wars against the Turks. He blamed his failures on grudging and insufficient financial support. At least in his private study, where he kept this bronze, he could contemplate an unrealized triumph over stingy âallies.â

Turtledove, Harry - American Empire - Blood and Iron (2001 cover)Image by sdobie American Empire: Blood & Iron by Harry Turtledove Ballantine/Del Rey, 2001 567 pages From the dust jacket: Twice in the last century, brutal war erupted between the United States and the Confederacy. Then after a generation of relative peace, The Great War explode worldwide. As the conflict engulfed Europe, the C.S.A. backed the Allies, while the U.S. found its own ally in Imperial Germany. The Confederate States, France and England all fell. Russia self-destructed, and the Japanese, seeing that the cause was lost, retired to fight another day. The Great War has ended, and an uneasy peace reigns around most of the world. But nowhere is the peace more fragile than on the continent of North America, where bitter enemies share a single landmass and two long, bloody borders. In the North, proud Canadian nationalists try to resist the colonial power of the United States. In the South, the once-might Confederate States have been pounded into poverty and merciless inflation. U.S. President Teddy Roosevelt refuses to return to prewar borders. The scars of the past will not soon be healed. The time is right for madmen, demagogues, and terrorists. At this crucial moment in history, with Socialists rising to power in the U.S. under the leadership of presidential candidate Upton Sinclair, a dangerous fanatic is on the rise in the Confederacy, preaching a message of hate. And in Canada another man - a simple farmer - has a nefarious plan to assassinate the greatest U.S. war hero, General George Armstrong Custer. With tension on the seas high, and an army of Marxist Negros lurking in the swamplands of the Deep South, more than enough people are eager to return the world to war. Harry Turtledove sends his sprawling cast of men and women - wielding their own faiths, persuasions, and private demons - into the troubled times between the wars.